CALL FOR RETURN OF AMERICAN LEADERSHIP

Again this morning I turned to the pages of my copy of “The American Patriot’s Almanac” as a source of information for my blog. With the growing negative poll numbers being reported for President Obama and the members of Congress, it is clear that the American electorate is in search of leadership in several levels of our governance.

Shortly after becoming President Theodore Roosevelt, following the death of President William McKinley from an assassin’s bullet, gave a speech titled “Citizenship in a Republic”. Following is an excerpt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

A friend once said that Teddy Roosevelt was a many-sided man and “every side was like an electric battery.” He was a cowboy, explorer, naturalist, Rough Rider, author and politician who was a dynamo the United States needed at the turn of the century.

Maybe, just maybe, our country is really looking for a man like Teddy Roosevelt. Leadership is a vital ingredient in a President’s success.

COMMANDER GRANGER